Thirty years in Madagascar

by Thomas T. Matthews

I found I had made a slight mistake, however, even with regard to the dolls; for I had ordered wax-faced ones. This was a disadvantage, as the wax faces softened and got out of shape with the heat, and they could not be washed, which was a most important item, as few things that do not stand washing are of much use in Madagascar. The huts have no chimneys, and the smoke has to find its way out by the doors, windows, and eaves. The result naturally is that the huts become covered with soot. Festoons of it hang from all parts of the roofs, and everything is very dirty. Thus every person or thing that does long service is said to be maìntimolàly, black with soot—veterans, whether military or missionary, get this name.

After two years of labour in the district I found that there was still the greatest need for the continual reiteration of the most elementary truths of the Gospel and of the fundamentals of the faith. It was a difficult task indeed to preach and teach the great doctrines of the Bible in interesting and intelligible language to a people who were still only in the first stages of civilization; for however great may be the force of faith apart from the mere terms of it, yet these must also be taught. To neglect these is to neglect the foundations or the pillars which support the arch. It is vain to expect it to stand without them.

The world at large—the heathen world in particular—is a great spiritual hospital, full of soul-sick patients; where we see sin in all its tragic and repulsive hideousness. We find it ‘the most tragic reality of our mortal life, and the greatest blot on God’s otherwise fair creation.’ There is no cure for it, no power that can meet and master it, except the Gospel. A late lieutenant-governor of Bengal has said: ‘If the evangelical Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is not true we must invent it, if we are to do any good among the heathen.’

Of course we all knew very well that, at that time, among our semi-heathen people there was much mere lip and little of heart religion. It was simply profession and superficial acquaintance with a few of the truths of the Bible; but no heart love or heart reverence. It was our aim, therefore, to try by God’s help to make them what they never were before, and to teach them the great principles that would guide them to a new and higher life.

We had the honour at A-kànga of initiating the movement of collections of money, clothing, and medicines for the soldiers at the front. I brought the proposal before the congregation of our mother-church, and they heartily endorsed it, and the other churches soon followed our example. We did not by any means raise the largest amount, as many of the churches were larger than ours; but ours were purely voluntary contributions. On several Sabbaths the collections were made in the other city congregations in the usual Malagasy way. The names of the members and adherents being called out in rotation, they were asked in the presence of the congregation how much they were prepared to give. If the amount named was thought large enough for the wealth of the subscriber the announcement was received with acclamation; but if not it was declined, and the donor was frankly told that it was not enough, and he had to raise his donation to such a sum as his fellow worshippers deemed proper. A very large amount of money was thus raised; yet I doubt if any of it ever reached those for whom it was intended: for as neither officers nor soldiers of the Malagasy army received any pay it was little wonder if none of the money ever reached the rank and file. I think some of the clothing and the medicines sent may have reached them; but of even that I am sceptical, such was the corruption that then prevailed. Reports reached us that some of the clothing was actually sold to the poor soldiers. The queen sent a large sum of money to the army on the north-west coast to be distributed among the soldiers; but the Hova officer in command appropriated the whole, and it was much the same with the quinine and other medicines sent for their use. Everything was sold to them by their rapacious heathen or semi-heathen officers.

During that year we had some very trying cases in which the severest church discipline had to be exercised, and a most unworthy pastor and an evangelist had to be excommunicated. The pastor had been put into office in the first instance simply because he was the eldest son of the chief of the village. An attempt was made to reinstate him, and for the same reason; but although the jury was packed, and to intimidate the people the chiefs from the neighbourhood had presented themselves, I had them and all the false members removed, the church doors locked, and the vote taken by ballot, and so these evil machinations were frustrated.

For some years there had been but a slight increase in the membership of the churches, either in the capital or the country; but there had been far fewer suspensions from fellowship than formerly, while the new members were of a more intelligent and satisfactory character. Up to the time of our second furlough in 1890, this may be said to have been the case; but to have gauged the results of the work, either in the capital or in the country, by the handful of new members gathered in yearly, or by their seemingly slow growth in grace, would have been to make a great mistake. For after all, the true test of mission work is not so much the statistics of church members or adherents, or even the size of the congregations and schools; but the kind and character of the men and women those churches turn out, and how they stand the wear and tear of life, and face its temptations. Our church members were the salt that kept the whole mass from utter corruption; the only lights in a wilderness of darkness. Through them, and by means of them, religious influences and religious truth were penetrating and permeating all classes of the community. But just as you cannot diffuse influence over a whole countryside, and have the same visible results as you might, had it been confined to one village, or focused on a single congregation, so our work suffered from its very success, suffered in intensity and depth from its wide extension.

It also suffered somewhat from an overestimate of the past, and with the influences supposed to be at work. We are prone to compare the men of the present to their disadvantage with the men who lived, and worked, and even died for their faith in times of persecution in Madagascar and elsewhere. The estimate of the piety of these earlier times is contrasted with a piety which has not to face death, though it may have to face the more exacting tests of life and growth. In the view of these early and heroic witnesses for Christ, more has been expected of their countrymen than it was reasonable to expect at so early a stage in their religious history. Principle had to take the place of sentiment, and sincerity that of mere profession, before they could be called strong; but the power that makes for righteousness was at work among them, and had been from the first. Mysterious and indefinite in its operations, but obvious and mighty in its results.

The Malagasy are passing through their religious childhood, and have all the virtues and weaknesses of that stage. The Malagasy are a people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood. As a people they cannot originate anything, but they are great imitators, and they are also much readier to imitate the bad than the good. There is not much that is original in them, as a people, except ‘original sin,’ and of that virus they have a fair share. Overgrown children, they were attracted by what was sensational—especially in preaching—but not nearly so much by the tinsel in religion as might have been expected. This may account for the fact that neither the Roman Catholics nor their Anglican imitators have ever made great progress among them. They have learnt that ‘all is not gold that glitters,’ and are not in such danger as might have been feared of mistaking what Coleridge calls ‘magpiety’ for real piety.

With many of them the good fight of faith has been a terrible reality. They had to struggle with strong, fierce, animal natures, like men fighting with wild beasts. The courage and determination with which some faced the fight was simply heroic. They took their corrupt natures by the throat, and strangled them with the strength which God supplied. Others maintained the struggle half-heartedly, and in their own strength, and it failed them.